A mother from Texas pleaded guilty to capital murder after she left her seven-year-old bedridden daughter home alone with younger siblings while she went out partying more than two years ago.
Lauren Kay Dean was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday after pleading guilty to murdering her 7-year-old daughter, Jordynn Barrera.
Dean was also sentenced to an additional 20 years for two counts of abandonment and endangering a child.
The criminal complaint states that Dean had left her three children home alone, including a 7-year-old girl who was bedridden due to medical conditions, so that she could go to Shade’s Bar.
On Jan. 31, 2020, at around 2:36 p.m., police in Bay City (which is approximately 80 miles southwest of Houston) got a call to do a welfare check at an apartment complex where the family lives.
Upon returning home, the then-26-year-old Dean invited law enforcement inside to show that her children were OK. However, after entering the apartment, officers found a deceased girl.
Dean was booked into Matagorda County Jail on three separate, second-degree felony charges of the abandonment and endangerment of a child after two other siblings, a 5-year-old and a 3-month old were found living at the residence in bad condition. The mother was later charged with capital murder of a person under 10 years old.
KTRK reported that Barrera, who has Down syndrome and cerebral palsy and cannot communicate, required a feeding tube and constant care.
By pleading guilty, Dean escapes the death penalty that could have been enforced if she went to trial and was found guilt of killing her daughter by leaving her home to go party.
